Chase Utley

WHAT DOESN'T kill a team can make it stronger, and if the Phillies survive the brutal 20-game stretch that they begin today, they will at least find themselves in position to make a run. But there is always cause for concern when a team's greatest hope is an aphorism, and after a 5-1 loss to Josh Beckett and the Red Sox on Sunday, you had to wonder whether this lineup's success in a recent six-game winning streak was proof of anything other than the...

Phillies fans have been breathing rarefied air during the last five years: a string of division titles, a pair of trips to the World Series, a sun-kissed parade down Broad Street, and an annual influx of All-Stars who wanted to be in Philadelphia, who were excited to wear red pinstripes, to play alongside Chase and Ryan and Cole, the homegrown heroes. It was surreal. It was joyous. But now you can't help but wonder: Is it over? Yeah, yeah — the Phillies finally had a decent week where they were able to string together a couple of wins against the Padres, Astros and Cubs.

Going into this uncertain season, Freddy Galvis was one of the Phillies' biggest question marks. With a quarter of the regular season in the books, Galvis has raised some questions of his own with his performance. Questions such as: If the Phillies had known they would get this kind of production from Galvis, would they have committed to that new contract for Jimmy Rollins? And: Why didn't they expect Galvis to be ready for the big leagues? And what might that say about the way the Phillies evaluate their own minor-league prospects (ahem, Domonic Brown)

Carlos Ruiz is 50-cent-a-gallon gasoline. He is a $500 Mercedes- Benz. He is a five-acre, 15-bedroom mansion on the beach for $5,000. Too good to be to true. Too affordable to be so good. The league MUP - most underpaid player. Perhaps the two greatest injustices in baseball right now are that the Phillies' heavy-duty catcher has never made an all-star team and that he had made only $5.93 million in his career before this season. The all-star snubs can be partially explained.

Two weeks ago today, Chase Utley stood in front of his locker at Citizens Bank Park and packed for a West Coast trip. Utley tossed his fielder's glove, batting gloves, spikes, sneakers and sunglasses into a red equipment bag. He then reached into his locker, pulled out five brand-new ebony bats - gamers - and stuffed them into his bat bag. Before zipping the bat bag closed, Utley reached for the one piece of equipment he hadn't left home without...

So here's the deal: You get to invite any of the top stars in Philadelphia sports over to the house for dinner. We're talking hypothetically, of course, but just say you have that opportunity. Who would you invite? Ryan Howard? DeSean Jackson? Mike Richards? And what would you serve them? Would you go Italian? Send out for Chinese? Or perhaps you have a favorite dish that has been passed down through the generations? We asked you whom would you like to have over in the survey we conducted with the Sport Industry Research Center at Temple University and you chose to chow down with Chase Utley.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The red No. 26 bag was still hanging to the left of the locker, right where Chase Utley left it last weekend. The two dangling hats and stacks of black bats were untouched, too. There was no sign of any activity, and Phillies officials were reluctant to even confirm Utley's presence at camp following a visit to an unknown specialist in an unidentified location. "I haven't seen him," Charlie Manuel said, "but someone said he came here. " Secrecy shrouds the status of Utley's chronically injured knees and what consequences it could have on the Phillies' roster in the short and long term.

Charlie Manuel was smiling in his office, 16 hours after his team handed the New York Yankees a nearly insurmountable lead in the World Series. "I feel fine," the Phillies' manager said, leaning back in the chair behind his desk. "Ready to go. Looking forward to it. . . . We came to the ballpark to win today. " On this team, Manuel sets the mood. The manager did not need to hold a meeting or deliver a speech; his players knew him too well. They knew that he expected them to worry only about playing a focused baseball game, and have fun doing it. That in-the-moment mind-set has always been the team's strength during the Manuel era, and it allowed the Phils to extend their season last night.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Time, not an MRI machine, will reveal whether the pain in Chase Utley's right knee is a momentary February concern or the first sign of bigger problems. Most of what time does isn't good - not for professional athletes and the bodies they push and punish and abuse. As much as he comes across as some kind of android - a baseball-bot programmed to hit and catch and run, but not to feel or speak or indulge in other human behavior - Utley turns out to be made from the same fragile stuff as the rest of us. The diagnosis on his right knee was tendinitis in the tendon that connects the kneecap to the lower leg. With rest and treatment, the pain should subside and Utley will return to the field.

It was hardly on the scale of a wardrobe malfunction, but Chase Utley's dropping of the F-bomb on live TV and radio yesterday caused a stir among some Philadelphians. After proclaiming "World champions!" at the Phillies' celebration at Citizens Bank Park, the smiling second baseman leaned into the microphone and inserted a familiar two-syllable profanity between "world" and "champions. " The crowd loved it, erupting into cheers for several minutes. Local TV and radio stations covering the event live, however, were less amused.

What should Jimmy do? The Phillies announced Monday that Jimmy Rollins' wife Johari had given birth to a girl and that he was not at Citizens Bank Park for the first game of the team's series with the Washington Nationals. Nobody in their right mind would say that Rollins should have been anywhere other than with his wife for the birth of the couple's first child. Not even winning the World Series could compare to the experience Rollins had on Monday. Tuesday, after a tweet from the team's Twitter account welcomed Camryn Drew Rollins into the Phillies' family, it was announced that Papa Rollins had been placed on the Paternity Leave List and replaced on the roster by catcher Erik Kratz, who was recalled from triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Phillies fans have been breathing rarefied air during the last five years: a string of division titles, a pair of trips to the World Series, a sun-kissed parade down Broad Street, and an annual influx of All-Stars who wanted to be in Philadelphia, who were excited to wear red pinstripes, to play alongside Chase and Ryan and Cole, the homegrown heroes. It was surreal. It was joyous. But now you can't help but wonder: Is it over? Yeah, yeah — the Phillies finally had a decent week where they were able to string together a couple of wins against the Padres, Astros and Cubs.

WHAT DOESN'T kill a team can make it stronger, and if the Phillies survive the brutal 20-game stretch that they begin today, they will at least find themselves in position to make a run. But there is always cause for concern when a team's greatest hope is an aphorism, and after a 5-1 loss to Josh Beckett and the Red Sox on Sunday, you had to wonder whether this lineup's success in a recent six-game winning streak was proof of anything other than the...

Going into this uncertain season, Freddy Galvis was one of the Phillies' biggest question marks. With a quarter of the regular season in the books, Galvis has raised some questions of his own with his performance. Questions such as: If the Phillies had known they would get this kind of production from Galvis, would they have committed to that new contract for Jimmy Rollins? And: Why didn't they expect Galvis to be ready for the big leagues? And what might that say about the way the Phillies evaluate their own minor-league prospects (ahem, Domonic Brown)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Boston Red Sox will be back at Citizens Bank Park on Friday night for another interleague series that the Phillies always deem special enough to sell as a separate ticket package. Late last June when the Red Sox came to town, the games were billed by many as a World Series preview: Boston's high-powered offense against the Phillies' star-studded starting rotation. At the time, the Phillies had the best record in baseball, and the Red Sox had recovered from a 2-10 start to move within a half-game of the New York Yankees in the American League East.

The deficit is not at all intimidating. Five and half games in the middle of May is nothing for a team that believes it is capable of an extended streak of good baseball and the Phillies, as bad as things have been, still believe they have that ability. Why shouldn't they? The core, albeit not entirely healthy, remains from the team that overcame a seven-game deficit to the New York Mets with 17 to play in 2007. Three years later, the Phillies were seven games behind the Atlanta Braves on July 22, 2010, and won the division going away.

THE PHRASE was coined after a particularly gruesome loss to the Padres in April 2010. The San Francisco Giants were defeated in the most inglorious fashion, allowing San Diego exactly one hit while losing, 1-0. "Giants baseball," Duane Kuiper, their longtime announcer, said on the air the next day. Then, pausing for effect: "Torture. " The Phillies began the final game of a three-game series Sunday with the same sort of odor surrounding them. The previous night, facing a San Diego team with the second-worst record in baseball and its most tepid lineup, they had managed one hit in 10 opportunities with runners in scoring position, left 12 batters on base, and again wasted a winning effort by their ace, Roy Halladay, in a 2-1 loss.

Carlos Ruiz is 50-cent-a-gallon gasoline. He is a $500 Mercedes- Benz. He is a five-acre, 15-bedroom mansion on the beach for $5,000. Too good to be to true. Too affordable to be so good. The league MUP - most underpaid player. Perhaps the two greatest injustices in baseball right now are that the Phillies' heavy-duty catcher has never made an all-star team and that he had made only $5.93 million in his career before this season. The all-star snubs can be partially explained.

We're not a conservative team, we're a let's-bleeping-giddy-up-and-go type of team. - Peter Laviolette For what seemed like forever, the Flyers of Philadelphia played dump-and-chase hockey, paying homage to that old reliable "system" that keeps oral surgeons in business. It was just enough to tease them, and us, into thinking they were always just a hot goalie away. Then along came Giddy-Up. No more trying to stuff round pegs into square holes. Every shift was an exercise in storming the beaches, Teddy's Rough Riders taking San Juan Hill.

WASHINGTON - Charlie Manuel's 22d different lineup in 27 games was posted in the Phillies clubhouse and some players stared at it longer than others. Placido Polanco was around the corner and down the stairs in the batting cage with hitting coach Greg Gross. Polanco was Manuel's new No. 3 hitter in a never-ending quest to find production from the spot, which is traditionally reserved for a team's best hitter. "What's interesting about that?" Manuel said. "I hit him third before quite a bit. " The manager had, for 28 games in 2011 - mostly in May. That experiment was abandoned once Chase Utley returned for good last June.